Stimulus Bill

When President Obama arrives in London this week he will meet with the leader of Germany, a nation where his election has brought newfound goodwill towards America; but will the goodwill be enough to force the hands of Germany to conform to Washington’s desires for additional stimulus and bailouts? If the latest media reports, which point towards an Administration attempting to dial down expectations, are any indication, then the answer is most likely a soft no.

The NYT is reporting that little ground is expected to be made in regards to additional German stimulus, with Chancellor Angela Merkel expected to cite fiscal discipline as a reason for German non-cooperation with President Obama’s Administration on the issue-

Here’s how silly Ron Paul is: He set a budget for his campaign and lived within it. Flew commercial.In fact, he ended with no deficit, which is how he thinks the federal government should operate. In point of fact, Paul ended his campaign with a surplus. Can you imagine anything so silly in this day and age?

Paul warned all during his campaign about a looming economic disaster if government just kept growing and growing and printing more money like Republicans and Democrats wanted.

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While this interview focuses on South Carolina politics, Governor Sanford answers questions regarding Obama's "spendulous" bill. Calling the stimulus package a temporary fix, he believes it will create more long-term problems.

Around 150 BC, Emperor Ching Ti came to power in China and immediately faced a major problem: his treasury was empty.

Taxes were very high, but no real revenue was coming in. That’s because the system of taxes at that time was an early form of income tax that centered on the government taking a large percentage of a farmer’s crops.

So Ching Ti did something bold and innovative: he cut taxes.

Overnight, taxes went from over 50% down to about 3%. Farmers, who had fled to the hills to escape draconian tax rates, now came home and began farming again. To make a long story short, Ching Ti’s greatest problem while governing was trying to keep all the grain in his barns from spoiling.

It seems that ancient Chinese history is good for more than just cutesy script on a fortune cookie.

“Dan Sullivan is a fiscal conservative with a stellar track record in Alaska and we strongly endorse him for the United States Senate,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement on Wednesday. “Dan has fought for pro-growth tax reform, taken on ObamaCare in court, and beaten back federal overreach by Obama’s EPA.”

“In the Senate,” he continued, “Dan Sullivan will continue the fight for economic freedom and we can’t wait to see him help deliver for America the kinds of pro-growth policies he’s already delivered for Alaska.”

Sullivan, a former Alaska Attorney General and state Department of Natural Resources commissioner, is one of five candidates seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate and is considered the favorite in the August 19 primary.

The Club for Growth endorsed Bryan Smith, who is challenging Simpson in the Republican primary, in July 2013.

“Career politician Mike Simpson is one of the most liberal, anti-taxpayer Republicans serving in Congress today,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola in a statement, “which is exactly why it’s so critical that Idaho voters replace him with a constitutional conservative like Bryan Smith.”

President Barack Obama has frequently complained that the United States is in an “age of austerity,” decrying modest cuts to the rate of spending increases he once supported. This, despite the fact that taxpayers have seen the national debt grow by nearly $6.8 trillion since the beginning of his presidency.

The end of austerity cannot come soon enough, as far as your humble correspondent is concerned. And a quick look at the historical budget tables shows why: In 2008, the federal government spent just a hair under $3 trillion. After six years of President Slash-and-Burn, spending has shrunk to almost $4 trillion. If we keep cutting like this, it will be down to $5 trillion before you know it.

These savage reductions have taken place in nearly every major federal program. Take defense spending: The year before Obama took office, it stood at $594 billion. It’s now $597 billion. Back in 2001 it was almost $300 billion. Even if you adjust for inflation, it’s clear that defense spending has shrunk at an alarming rate.

Same deal for food stamps: Under President Barack Obama, spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has gone from $40 billion to $78 billion, in constant dollars. And that’s after it went from $20 billion to $40 billion under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Spending cuts like that are simply barbaric.

Believe it or not, folks, it’s been five years since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the 2009 stimulus measure spent $831 billion on infrastructure, tax credits, and other policies that largely served as taxpayer-funded giveaways to core leftist constituencies

Passed in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the stimulus bill was based on the Keynesian notion that the government, through spending on “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects and other purported economic multipliers, could drive aggregate demand and create jobs.

Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, the economic advisors who developed the stimulus plan, argued that these policies would help bring the United States back from the brink of economic depression. In their January 2009 policy paper, the two economists claimed that the unemployment rate would not exceed 7.9% with the stimulus bill, while it would reach 8.8% without it. Because, you know, counterfactual.